1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an image forming system and an image editing system. More specifically, the invention relates to an image editing system for editing a marked portion of a document on which a mark has been put with a line marker in a part to which a reader""s attention has been intended to be called, and an image forming system having the same.
2. Related Background Art
It is widely carried out to put marks on important information on a document, which has been printed on a paper sheet, with a fluorescent line marker or the like to make the information stand out to call a reader""s attention to the information.
However, if lines are manually drawn with a line marker, the lines are often inclined or slightly swayed up and down or from side to side to meander so as not to be straight. Therefore, there are some cases where the document on which the lines are drawn with the line marker is more illegible.
In order to avoid such a situation, the lines are sometimes drawn using a ruler. However, if such measures are taken, there is a problem in that line drawing efficiency deteriorates.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to eliminate the aforementioned problems and to provide an image editing system capable of easily realizing a simple document editing by carrying out a desired editing process on a marked portion of a document on which a mark has been put with a line marker, and an image forming system having the image editing system.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image editing system comprising: a color scanner; and an image processing part for processing image data obtained by reading a document by means of the color scanner; wherein the color scanner reads a first original which includes a portion of a character or diagram having a first color, and a portion which is marked in a second color different from the first color so as to cover information of the character or diagram, and, the image processing part edits image data of the marked portion of image data of the read first original.
The image editing system preferably further comprises means for indicating a change of the second color during the scanning of the first original by the color scanner.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming system comprising: a color scanner; an image processing part for processing image data obtained by reading a document by means of the color scanner; and an image forming part for forming an image on the basis of image data processed by the image processing part; wherein the color scanner reads a first original which includes a portion of a character or diagram having a first color, and a portion which is marked in a second color different from the first color so as to cover information of the character or diagram, and, the image processing part edits image data of the marked portion of image data of the read first original.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the image processing part rectangularizes the shape of the contour of the marked portions on the basis of the image data of the marked portions, recognizes the position of vertexes of the rectangularized regions, connects the rectangularized regions neighboring each other on the basis of positional information of the vertexes and prepares image data including information of the shape of the connected regions and the character or diagram in the connected regions. A line mark which is drawn manually and which has a turbulent contour in shape is thereby corrected to an orderly line mark and the image thereof is printed.
Editing processes by the image processing part may include a process for erasing information of the second color except for at least a part of a peripheral portion of the rectangularized regions and for preparing image data of a thin line having the second color on the basis of image data of the connected regions. A line mark drawn in the original can thus easily erased.
The editing processes by the image processing part may also include a process for a half-tone dot meshing for image data of the connected regions.
In a further preferred embodiment the second color may include a plurality of colors, and the editing processes by the image processing part may include a process for editing a portion of the image data of the connected regions, the portion of the image data having the second color which is substantially the same as a desired color.
The image editing system or the image forming system may further comprise a storage device for previously storing therein image data of a plurality of third colors, a color display unit for displaying the third colors, and an input unit, and, the desired color may be a color which is selected from the third colors displayed on the color display unit and inputted to the image processing part.
The color scanner preferably reads a second original for assigning the desired color, the second original being painted in a fourth color, and the image editing system may further comprises a color display unit for displaying image data of the second original which is read by the color scanner and an input unit, and the desired color may be a color which is selected from the fourth colors displayed on the color display unit and inputted to the image processing part.
In addition the desired color may be a color which is selected from the image data of the first original.
In another preferred embodiment it is desirable that the image processing part changes the second color to a desired color.